A film noir that is more a character study of a
small-time
jewel
thief than one concerned with its pulp story. A team
of burglars headed
by the brooding Nat Harbin (Dan Duryea), including the
edgy jewelry
expert
Blaylock (Peter Capell), the vulgar strong-arm Dohmer
(Mickey
Shaughnessy),
and the sexy young lady who cases their victim's
homes, Gladden (Jayne
Mansfield). After Gladden cases the Philadelphia
mansion of a noted
spiritualist
(Mackay), the gang successfully steals a valuable
diamond necklace
worth
about $150,000. The only hitch in the heist, is that a
patrol car spots
their abandoned car and Nat is forced to explain why
the car is there.

At the gang's hideout apartment tensions run high as
the
attractive
Gladden stirs up Dohmer in a romantic way, but she
wants no part of
him.
Meanwhile the impatient Blaylock takes out his anger
at the delay in
fencing
the necklace on her. Nat decides to send Gladden to
Atlantic City to
wait
for things to cool down, as the gang waits to sell the
hot necklace to
a fence in Baltimore. Nat was raised when he was an
orphan by Gladden's
father, a professional burglar, who treated him with
great kindness and
taught him everything he knows about being a thief. He
also made Nat
promise
that if anything happened to him, that he would look
after his
daughter.
For Nat, being loyal and keeping your word means
everything.

The story gets complicated when the gang is stopped
by a
state trooper
on their way to Atlantic City and they shoot the
trooper, causing an
APB
put out on them. When Nat sees Gladden in Atlantic
City, she stubbornly
won't leave town because of all of her frustration
over the fact that
he
never made any advances to her.

The conclusion involves a chase through the Steel
Pier with
the crooked
cop, Charlie (Bradley), who attempts to murder Nat and
get the
necklace.
The artistic shots of the chase are like those that
Orson Welles did in
"The Lady from Shanghai." The film succeeds as a
visual feast, which
includes
shadowy framed scenes and close-ups of the characters
sweating during
the
heist. The film's weakness is that it came at the end
of the film noir
cycle, so all the noir devices seemed to be beaten to
death.